


So quick bright things come to confusion

by Sharpiefan



Series: The Shakespeare Series [13]
Category: The London Life (Roleplaying Game)
Genre: Peninsular War, Pre-Canon, Regency
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-18
Updated: 2016-05-18
Packaged: 2018-06-09 07:31:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,585
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6895684
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sharpiefan/pseuds/Sharpiefan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A routine cavalry patrol in Spain goes very very wrong</p>
            </blockquote>





	So quick bright things come to confusion

**Author's Note:**

> Warning for non-graphic description of injury and period treatment, also one occurrence of a swear-word. As we know pretty much what happens after the conclusion of this piece, I may or may not do a follow-up. And please comment - my fic-writing background is from LJ, and I adore and treasure comments.

_Or, if there were a sympathy in choice,_  
_War, death, or sickness, did lay siege to it,_  
_Making it momentary as a sound,_  
_Swift as a shadow, short as any dream,_  
_Brief as the lightning in the collied night_  
_That, in a spleen, unfolds both heaven and earth,_  
_And ere a man hath power to say 'Behold!'_  
_The jaws of darkness do devour it up;_  
_So quick bright things come to confusion_  


     ― _A Midsummer Night's Dream_ , Act I Sc I

**(Portuguese/Spanish border country, March 1811)**

“Major Fortescue.” Lieutenant-Colonel Fitzgerald's voice was coolly level. “Thank you. You have stated your position and reasoning and I accept them. But my mind is made up – I have been cooped up this winter, as we all have, but with rather fewer chances than anyone to get out and see what is going on. And now that we are no longer stuck south of Torres Vedras, I would like to see the terrain for myself, rather than simply relying on reports, as good as those reports may be. Corporal Ashton is as competent a cover-man as any I could wish for, and Private Jackson will be there likewise, as well as the regular patrol.”

The major heaved a sigh and tugged his jacket straight. “Well, sir, if your mind is made up, I will merely wish you the best of luck and hope that you enjoy the ride.”

Robbie grinned and clapped him on the shoulder. “I need to blow the cobwebs away before I find myself a candidate for Bedlam. It is only this once, I promise.”

“I shall hold you to that, sir,” Fortescue replied lightly as the outbound patrol turned to mount up.

Spring in the hills of Spain could be neither a better time of year nor a better place to see it, Robbie thought to himself. Winter quarters were all very well for recuperating and gathering strength – there had been no serious threat from the French, but that was hardly surprising. Even the British had been shocked by the feats of engineering that had been accomplished to ensure their safety over the winter. There had been forts constructed, ravines filled – entire hillsides had been scarped in order to present a completely impenetrable barrier to the French, who had been denied any scrap of food from the area in front of the Lines – all supplies had been removed south or destroyed.

Neither Robbie nor anyone else was expecting any trouble on what was, after all, a routine patrol. The sun was out, there was more warmth in the air than there had been even the week before, despite the fact that it had not been anything like as cold as the winter two years before.

The route the patrol was taking lay across some low hills, the sides of which were steeper and stonier than anything Robbie could recollect in England. They tried to keep as much as possible to the road that wound between the hills, but even the roads were not level and more than once they found themselves trusting to their horses' sure-footedness and sense.

“Qui va la?”

The cry was unexpected and a lot closer than it should have been – Robbie was going to have words with them all afterwards and give them a thorough dressing-down, especially the point man who should have been more observant – when it all went to hell. There were muskets firing and he was trying to pull his men together to respond properly when his horse reared under him before slipping sideways. The ground came up to meet him and there was a crack and a white hot pain lanced through his right thigh. He became dimly aware of a confusion around and above him and someone, a man's voice, screaming or sobbing and it took him a while to realise that it was his own voice. Things went black and he could hear voices above him for a moment before even they faded mercifully, taking the pain with them.

“ _Shit_!” Corporal Ashton's single word was feelingly spoken and he slid out of the saddle to kneel beside the Colonel, whose leg was obviously broken – his thigh had taken his whole weight as the horse had thrown him off sideways. It was a miracle that his charger had neither landed on top of the Colonel nor jostled him in its death throes.

* * *

Nobody knew quite how they'd managed to get the Colonel back down the hills to Elvas, where the military hospital had been established. They'd formed a rough travois from cut branches and someone had rescued the Colonel's saddle, propping it beneath his head as a makeshift pillow, although the rest of the tack was a dead loss, left with the dead animal for the French or locals to find and make use of.

Robbie was white under the brown skin of his suntan, and murmuring and whimpering despite being unconscious. He was carried inside, tenderly, by the rest of the patrol members and laid in a bed in the officers' ward, where a surgeon came to look at him, sucked his teeth and muttered something about 'no chance that'll ever hold his weight again, much better take it off now and save the grief' before going away again.

Private Jackson scowled and posted himself sentry at the door, barring entry to anyone who was not prepared at least to try to save the Colonel's leg for him – if he lost it, that was his career done with. He'd never ride again – never even walk again.

It was a different man who came in a few minutes later, prepared to at least make the attempt to save the leg. Robbie himself remained oblivious, merely moaning a little when his overalls were cut off and then groaning when his leg was pulled straight and splinted tightly. It took four men to manage to set it – the surgeon and his assistant to pull the bone back into place, as much as they could, and Jackson and Ashton to hold the Colonel's shoulders down and keep him still.

“Compound fracture. He will be lucky if it mends straight and if he has not lost any of the length of the bone,” the surgeon said frankly, looking the two soldiers in the eye. They had splinted it with his sound leg as a guide for the length, but only time would tell. “At least it did not break the skin – there would be almost no chance of preventing it getting infected if it had, and he would have had to have it amputated to save his life.”

* * *

Robbie was unaware of time passing, though faces came and went – officers from his regiment, officers from other regiments in their division who had worked alongside them. Even a stray Rifle officer came to call. Robbie vaguely remembered him as the man who had come searching for a lost horse through the whole division, including a cavalry regiment and battery of horse artillery.

He had been in the hospital for about two weeks or so when Sir Stapleton Cotton, the man in charge of Wellington's light cavalry forces, came by for a visit. Robbie was more lucid today and struggled to sit up without groaning at the renewed stab of pain the movement caused. He was waved back down.

“Colonel Fitzgerald, I bring some news for you that you may or may not find to be good,” he began, with little ceremony. Robbie looked up at him with a frown as he continued, “General Wellington has seen fit to allow you to return home to England to recuperate properly, with the understanding that you return as soon as you may, or inform him as soon as it becomes evident you cannot take up your duties again.” There was an uncomfortable expression on his face as he said the last, and Robbie understood all too well why. He had not yet fully come to terms with the possibility that the injury he had sustained might have ended his soldiering career.

Sir Stapleton softened a little. “Your senior Major – Fortescue? – will have charge of the Fourteenth until such time as you return, and your groom may accompany you to England. It is to be hoped that you effect a full recovery and return to take up the Fourteenth's reins again.”

Robbie nodded, accepting General Wellington's generosity in allowing him to return home to recuperate. He could only hope that the journey would not worsen the injury, and realised that if he were much lower in rank, such a return home would not have been allowed unless he was found to be unfit to serve again.

“Thank you, sir,” he managed, already dreading the journey to Lisbon – the local carts that the sick and wounded travelled in were infamous throughout the Peninsular Army for their discomfort and the piercing squeal of the axles as they turned, the solid wheels being fixed to them. It would take a week, easily, he thought, and then there would be a delay while waiting for a ship from England, and a further week or two to make the sea crossing... It could be May before he was home again, and a whole month's travelling with his leg in the state it was in was an unpleasant prospect to say the least.

“I shall wish you a smooth journey and swift recovery then, Colonel.” And with that, the senior officer departed, barely allowing Robbie a chance to draw a breath.


End file.
